FortKnox's Journal: Spider ID

Since I'm not at home, i have to use village photos, so my apologies... but my wife took a pic of a spider from our garage she saw today (tried tidying things up while the kids were all taking naps).
She's immediately thinking its a brown recluse, which I know is completely incorrect, but am having trouble ID'ing it (especially since I only see 6 legs?!?). Its in a container and was under a 30lb bag of dogfood on the floor. Its about as big as a quarter.

Spidy

I'm gonna huff and puff

[stoolpigeon]

Wolf spider maybe? [okstate.edu]

Re:I'm gonna huff and puff

[FortKnox]

Wolf's tend to be thick, this one is slender... my guess is a funnel weaver [surviveoutdoors.com].

Re:I'm gonna huff and puff

[stoolpigeon]

That does look like it. You just asked to let me make myself look stupid :)

Re:I'm gonna huff and puff

[bryanthompson]

[nelson] HA HA! [/nelson]

Re:I'm gonna huff and puff

[Em Emalb]

I believe that's it.

They are pretty harmless from what I understand.

At least the ones my wife has made me remove from the house/garage are.

Re:I'm gonna huff and puff

[baldass_newbie]

Had one in the garage last weekend. Sprayed it with pyrtethrin and watched it writhe in the driveway.
Left the carcass where he died as a sign to the other spiders.

Re:I'm gonna huff and puff

[FortKnox]

Heh... I do that with dead bugs, too.
wife: Josh, clean that up
Me: No, its a sign to all other bugs that I don't mess around with their kind.
I'm like the Vlad of the bug world ;)

Re:I'm gonna huff and puff

[trmj]

Way too thin to be a wolf spider. Also, it's a bit dark and nowhere near hairy enough. This one has me stumped, it's not one I've seen in PA before and I haven't seen a single spider that was noteworthy here in Boston yet.

Re:I'm gonna huff and puff

[Abm0raz]

TRMJ is right. It's definitely NOT a wolf spider. WOlf spiders are usually larger and MUCH hairier. They also have 4 pairs of 2 legs that look more like just 4 legs.

Jusdging by this site, I believe the above post is right, it's a grass spider/funnel weaver [google.com].

-Ab

Definitely not a brown recluse.

[Some Woman]

They're about as big as a dime and have an hour-glass on their back, right?

Re:Definitely not a brown recluse.

[trmj]

That's the black widow spiders. Mean little ladies, but if you don't bother them they have the same respect for you.

Re:Definitely not a brown recluse.

[Some Woman]

Sorry...I have my spider marking lingo mixed up. A googling shows that I meant "violin" or "fiddle" instead of hourglass.

Re:Definitely not a brown recluse.

[FortKnox]

Hour glass is a black widow... most recluses have a violin shape, though...

Re:Definitely not a brown recluse.

[Some Woman]

Isn't the marking on a black widow red, thus making the shape not matter...if you see a black spider with a red marking, just get the fuck away, yes? And also..they're...uh...black.

So sorry to have offended the entymologists here with my poor identification of shapes. ;^)

Re:Definitely not a brown recluse.

[RailGunner]

They're about as big as a dime and have an hour-glass on their back, right?

Violin shape. [osu.edu]

It's also doesn't look like a wolf spider. [okstate.edu]

My guess? it sort of looks like a crab spider. [ohio-state.edu]

We have a name for spiders that big though - we call them "roach hunters". I hope you didn't kill it... one spider that size can take out literally hundreds of roaches in a year.

Re:Definitely not a brown recluse.

[Degrees]

Your first link made me laugh. The picture says "Not actual size." Gad I hope so - otherwise it could drive golf balls at me like a ... rail gun. ;-)

How big is it?

[StalinsNotDead]

There's no reference for scale. Couldn't your spouse at least set a ruler or a recognizable coin next to it for the photo? ;)

It looks like it came from Klendathu

[HokieSeas]

Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world. Service guarantees citizenship.

Freaky

[nizo]

Never saw one like that before. I did see the biggest damn jumping spider the other day however; it scared the crap out of me when it jumped out of a crack in the shed wall when I opened the door. It was a jet black nickle-sized hairy freak o' nature. I got to watch as it chased down and killed a daddy longlegs; I couldn't believe how far it could jump. I would have nabbed it to show to the kiddo but alas the SO has some freaky rule about not bringing bugs into the house :-|

Speaking of spiders...

[Ethelred Unraed]

...we saw charming l'il feller [grantham.de] outside our window while staying at a plantation in Tidewater Virginia.

As such things are unknown in Germany, BoE was duly...impressed. Hell, even a Virginia native such as myself was duly...impressed. So much so that you will note the blurriness of the photo because I was using the zoom. I mean, that thing coulda jumped on my face and sucked out my life-force if I got too close.

Right?

Though I remember a long time ago, here on the Dot, someone posted a picture of a wall

Re:Speaking of spiders...

[Talinom]

You mean like this camel spider [dsu.edu]?

Re:Speaking of spiders...

[Ethelred Unraed]

I take it all back.

Dear President Bush, please nuke Iraq. Thank you.

Cheers,

Ethelred

Re:Speaking of spiders...

[FortKnox]

Relook at that pic... the camel spiders are big, just not giant... look at it in proportion to the sleeve on the page... it just looks big cause of an optical illusion.

And that clock spider? Right Chere [wikipedia.org]

Re:Speaking of spiders...

[Talinom]

Fine, they may not be that big but check out what their bite can do [msn.com]! (Click on the Iraq ~ Camel Spider Bite [msn.com] link that doesn't like to be linked to from off site.)

Re:Speaking of spiders...

[IpalindromeI]

That link is wrong. Although they do have a very strong bite, camel spiders are not venomous. I've seen those photographs online before, and the bite was attributed to a brown recluse.